Tigers That Should Be In The HOF !!!

On Thu, 29 Jan 2004 22:18:40 -0500, Dan Szymborski
<dan.RemoveThis@baseballprimerREMOVE.com> wrote:

>In article <40199898.22513059.RemoveThis@news.highstream.net>,
>somedude@somewhere.net says...
>> On Thu, 29 Jan 2004 10:48:57 -0500, Dan Szymborski
>> <dan.RemoveThis@baseballprimerREMOVE.com> wrote:
>> >average a single time in his career.
>>
>> Which makes him basically a more durable version of Catfish Hunter, if
>> you compare their stats. Catfish's ERA was similarly close to league
>> average - granted he did throw in pain every year after age 30. So my
>> question would be why Catfish and not Morris, and for that matter Bert
>> Blyleven ? Especially Blyleven with his 3.31 career ERA and over 3700
>> K's !! The sportwriters hate this guy or what?
>
>Blyleven is the anti-Hunter - he played his prime for some truly horrible
>offensive teams.

Yeah, imagine Walter Johnson on a decent ballclub - he could have
destroyed Cy Young's record !! We'd have the "Walter Johnson" award
instead.

>> >Is that how one would mentally rank those pitchers? Or even close?
>> >Morris was durable, not dominant - he's also the 3rd losingest pitcher of
>> >the 1980s. I'll get off this subject now as I'm likely to be cursed out by someone
>> >for going after a sacred cow.
>>
>> Good point, the "most in the 80's" sounds sexier than is really is.
>> But the bottom line for Morris reads 252 wins. Not the "Magic 300"
>> but certainly more than others already enshrined.
>>
>> I can't argue that Ryan, Carlton, Seaver, Jenkins, Sutton, etc. have
>> better stats than Morris, but there is a "void" of HOF pitchers who
>> had the peak of their careers after 1980. Shouldn't at least one
>> starting pitcher from the "80's" be worthy of enshrinement? Middle
>> infield is certainly well covered from all the earlier eras, with guys
>> like Red Schoendiest, Rabbit Maranville, and Phil Rizzuto getting in.
>>
>> With one of every five players in the majors being a starting pitcher,
>> it seems the "80's" starters should be represented by at least ONE
>> Hofer, right ? I'm not advocating a quota, but it sure looks like a
>> serious void from my limited perspective ....
>
>Problem is that if everyone better than the worst mistakes get in, we'll
>have a massive Hall of Fame and in the process, probably make more
>mistakes!

Granted, I'm just saying that a number of players, like Tram, have
earned more votes than they've had so far. Often they are
overshadowed, but still have merit. As for Whitaker, the only guy who
comes even close to Lou in his era is Frank White. But he didn't play
in a big market, plus Lou wasn't "media friendly" ...

>Morris is definitely better than the worst Hall of Famers and it wouldn't
>be a travesty if he got in the Hall (all those innings in his era is a
>huge point in his favor), but I think there are still more deserving
>players. Like Bridges.
>
>And Rizzuto *is* a truly horrible choice. The Vet Committee turned out
>to be pretty ill-conceived what with Frankie Frisch getting everyone he
>ever played with into the Hall. The new format isn't an improvement
>either - almost guaranteed to elect nobody.

Shame, because there are plenty of overlooked guys from 1890-1940
left, also the 80's ...

>There was some pretty bad luck with 1980s pitchers as a group it seems.
>Just looking at the pitchers that debuted between 1976 and 1985, there
>are a lot of could'ves and not many dids. Dave Stieb, John Tudor,
>Fernando Valenzuela, Frank Viola, Orel Hershiser, Dwight Gooden, Jimmy
>Key, Bret Saberhagen is a pretty impressive list of derailed pitchers.

You're right, seems like everybody was getting injured ... Perhaps
managers were tempted to overwork the decent starters that they did
have, seeing how the pool of quality starters was so thin. I think
the king of overworked pitchers was Billy Martin - his one negative as
a manager.

>Actually, this makes me more in favor of Jack Morris for the Hall. He's
>pretty much the only pitcher of the era to get his full career in except
>for Dennis Martinez, who strangely enough debuted before Morris but had
>his best years after Morris was done.

I recall Martinez having alcohol problems when he was with Baltimore.
As his stats show he almost washed out of baseball, then had a great
later career. He had a dandy curveball ....

Andy.

"Da Yooper" <somedude DeleteThis @somewhere.net> wrote in message
news:401a7d22.198575@news.highstream.net...
>
> You're right, seems like everybody was getting injured ... Perhaps
> managers were tempted to overwork the decent starters that they did
> have, seeing how the pool of quality starters was so thin. I think
> the king of overworked pitchers was Billy Martin - his one negative as
> a manager.
>
The case against Martin with Oakland seems strong. Not so clear elsewhere.
But that is a HUGE negative. Given the limited ability of managers to affect
outcomes (what, 5 games or so for great over average), to ruin just one
quality pitcher offsets any possible good the guy could have done.